Scientists find bigger than expected polar ice melt

[sabra]

Source: AFP

GENEVA - Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster and in a more widespread manner than expected, raising the sea level and fuelling climate change, a scientific survey revealed on Wednesday.

Warming in the Antarctic was "much more widespread than was thought," while Arctic sea ice wass diminishing and the melting of Greenland's ice cover was accelerating, said the International Polar Year survey.

The frozen and often inaccessible polar regions have long been regarded as some of the most sensitive barometers of environmental change because of their influence on the world's oceans and atmosphere.

...

Shifts in temperature patterns deep underwater meawhile suggested that the continent's land ice sheet was melting faster.

"These changes are signs that global warming is affecting the Antarctic in ways not previously suspected," the statement added.

"These assessments continue to be refined, but it now appears that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and thus raising sea level, and that the rate of ice loss from Greenland is growing."

Read more: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2009/February/international_February1907.xml§ion=international

[Winterblues]

1. What really bums me out about all this Climate Change is I happen to live

in an area that is supposed to get cooler and actually has done so. Cooler and wetter and no damn fun. First they called it La Nina but now they are just saying it is the new trend in weather patterns. Cooler here and warmer in other places. Helps keep the air clean though so not all is bad.

[Seedersandleechers]

11. I cry for the polar bears as

they are dying in large numbers and soon will be instinct. I also cry for the whale and dolphins that the Japanese kill every year. Humans deserve to become extinct. The sooner the better.

[kestrel91316]

2. Wow. No one could have forseen THIS.

[tex-wyo-dem]

3. Polar regions found warming fast, raising sea levels

Source: Reuters

GENEVA (Reuters) - The Arctic and Antarctic regions are warming faster than previously thought, raising world sea levels and making drastic global climate change more likely than ever, international scientists said on Wednesday.

New evidence of the trend was uncovered by wide-ranging research in the two areas over the past two years in a United Nations-backed program dubbed the International Polar Year (IPY), they said.

"Snow and ice are declining in both polar regions, affecting human livelihoods as well as local plant and animal life in the Arctic as well as global atmospheric circulation and sea-level," according to a summary of a report by the researchers.

An assessment of the findings of the research was still being refined, said the IPY's "State of Polar Research" report.

"But it now appears certain that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass and thus raising sea level, and that the rate of ice loss from Greenland is growing," it said.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE51O4ZX20090225

[bertman]

4. Prayer and faith are the answers to this problem.

[Zhade]

13. You forgot the sarcasm tag.

NT!

[Gregorian]

5. Sadly, the answer to this situation is not going to be addressed.

As I've said many times, the solution to this situation is at odds with our very civilization. It is the opposite of stimulation. It is the opposite of doing. It is NOT DOING.

And this is why we cannot engineer our way out. All we can do, if we want to continue doing as we've been doing, is engineer our way into fractional improvements. And it's not even that simple. Each fraction becomes more and more difficult. Just as availability of energy resources have become nearly exponentially more difficult each step of the way. From wood, to oil, to nuclear and solar. So are these fractional increments of efficiency we are now trying to accomplish.

And "not doing" is a very threatening proposal. It would mean living like a native. And that can no longer happen. It can't because not only are the resources not there any more, but we have artificially sustained a population that is far far greater than nature can provide for.

Our best plan is negative growth, and less activity. I don't even mention engineering. Just an example would be this Chevy Volt. After building a completely new vehicle and shipping it to the customer, it still only has an improved efficiency that is only digits ahead of what we have now. One might argue that it's not worth doing at all. But that would take some seriously involved studying. There are things we already know about producing vehicles. The amount of energy required to build a car is roughly ten percent of the energy use of that car over it's lifetime. And how much energy is it going to take to continue research on batteries, photovoltaic cells, etc? It's great to hear Obama talking about restarting our engine. Stimulus. But...it's a dilemma. One I'm afraid we're going to discover the answer to too late.

There's really only one answer. Do less. And no one is going to talk about it.

It's hard to not sound gloomy under these circumstances. The positive side of this is that Obama's speech last night was the single most optimistic talk I've ever heard a president utter, in terms of global environmental concern.

[bread_and_roses]

10. Nor can the earth sustain the isolated nuclear family in the style idealized in the US

...each unit with its' own refrigerator, washing machine and dryer, stove, oven, microwave, dishwasher; heating and cooling its' unused rooms 24/7 - not to mention lawn mower, snow-blower, and constant driving to buy various supplies and pick up various children from far-flung activities. But we are a long way from contemplating any more communal arrangements as a solution. The nuclear family is sacrosanct - if the fact that the nuclear family routinely abandons, abuses, and murders thousands of its' children every year in the US doesn't prompt us to question it, probably nothing will. The more likely scenario is that the US will try to maintain its' standard of living by force, the hell with the millions who will starve around the world or be slaughtered by our bombs as we try to steal all their resources for our own. We see the bloated bellies of Africa on our TVs with jaded indifference, and justify Obama's blowing a few more children to bits in Afghanistan with equanimity. We'll swallow any lie as long as it keeps the oil flowing for us, the raw materials available for us.

edit for a stray letter

[cambie]

15. A thought from the 11th hour.

A positive and informative movie that. It points out that before the industrial revolution humans used the current sunlight that fell on the earth each year. The sun grew food, clothing, animals, and wood. That kind of existence is sustainable indefinitely. After the industrial revolution we found how to exploit solar energy that had been stored over millions of years in carbon fuel deposits. We used that to produce human biomass. Before there were fewer than one billion people. Now it is over six billion. We eat coal and oil through irrigation, cultivation, transportation, and fertilizer production. We could achieve sustainability by adopting the measures of the preceding two posters with the added step of reducing the population by 5/6.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, sabra.

[tclambert]

7. Republicans will say this is just more of the Al Gore global warming hoax.

"Bah, the polar bears at the South Pole are just fine."

And really, how can you argue with that? It's kinda pointless. It's kinda :banghead:

[DemWynner]

8. This needs to be kicked!

This is so important for people to know. People do not realize that this is happening to our world, but everyone knows what celebs were wearing to the Oscars the other night. It is so sad. We are doing a garden this year to help out with food costs and if we buy less from the store, there is less transportation costs. We are going to buy from the farmers market this year as well for the same reasons. I just hope that the weather is good for it.

[sofa king]

12. Oh, they'll know soon enough.

If the Greenland ice sheet melts, worldwide sea levels will go up about twenty feet. That's enough to swamp a good chunk of Florida and whole bunch of islands, not to mention most sea port facilities in the United States.

People can choose to deny this truth, but sooner or later it's going to pick your ass up and move you somewhere else, and then it will be much harder to deny.

[Emillereid]

9. K and R!

[XemaSab]

14. .

[RamboLiberal]

16. Antarctic Glaciers Melting Faster Than Thought

Source: ABC News

Glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster and across a much wider area than previously thought, a development that threatens to raise sea levels worldwide and force millions of people to flee low-lying areas, scientists said Wednesday.

Researchers once believed that the melting was limited to the Antarctic Peninsula, a narrow tongue of land pointing toward South America. But satellite data and automated weather stations now indicate it is more widespread.

The melting "also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

"That's unusual and unexpected," he told The Associated Press in an interview.

By the end of the century, the accelerated melting could cause sea levels to climb by 3 to 5 feet — levels substantially higher than predicted by a major scientific group just two years ago.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=6954089

---

What BS - there's no global warming according to Limpballs, Hannity and all the other right wing idiots. Why they have a bunch of scientists telling them that's so. And besides it's been so COLD this winter! :sarcasm:

[cobalt1999]

17. Since I live on a low lying waterfront piece of property, I guess it's time to sell

Pity, I was hoping to wait until the market recovered a bit.

Actually, the water levels in the bay are the lowest I've ever seen.

[jody]

18. Related "Alps-like Mountain Range Exists Under East Antarctic Ice Sheet"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090224133156.htm

[avaistheone1]

19. Don't worry. The answer is clean coal.

:sarcasm:

[Seedersandleechers]

20. Humans

need to become instinct. The sooner the better.

[jody]

21. "become instinct", was that a Freudian slip? n/t

[Seedersandleechers]

23. I meant extinct

The glasses of whiskey are starting to take hold.

[jody]

24. Been there, done that. Have a peaceful evening!

:toast: :hi:

[tama]

26. My instinct says

that it's no good to project our sins to all of humanity. Why should also native tribes living their traditional age old balanced "primitive" ways of living, those few remaining that civilization has not (yet) genocided in it's manic expansionism, become extinct? Has not Mother Nature right to enjoy and share the precence of human species, as long as humans behave prudently and not as kings of creation?

[Delphinus]

27. Perhaps,

because they are in tune with Mother Nature, they will find ways to adapt and carry on the species of human-kind.

This came across my computer the other day and I'm just now reading it:
"Gaia" scientist says life doomed by climate woes
Wed Feb 25, 2009 5:17pm GMT

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - Climate change will wipe out most life on Earth by the end of this century and mankind is too late to avert catastrophe, a leading British climate scientist said.

James Lovelock, 89, famous for his Gaia theory of the Earth being a kind of living organism, said higher temperatures will turn parts of the world into desert and raise sea levels, flooding other regions.

His apocalyptic theory foresees crop failures, drought and death on an unprecedented scale. The population of this hot, barren world could shrink from about seven billion to one billion by 2100 as people compete for ever-scarcer resources.

"It will be death on a grand scale from famine and lack of water," Lovelock told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. "It could be a reduction to a billion (people) or less."

{snip} http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE51O5EU20090225?sp=true

[Towlie]

22. In the future when there's no more denying warming, they'll still say the scientists were wrong.

[progressoid]

25. Blah blah blah. Its all part of a natural cycle.

That guy what wrote Gerasick Park done told me so.